Award Winning People-First Strategy
4 things we’ve learnt about a people-first culture
We’ve heard the term ‘people-first’ being bandied around in lots of organisations talking about culture and company mission statements. Most organisations will say — and aspire to — put people first, care about people and create a good company culture. Not everyone gets it right and it’s constantly evolving.
Post-pandemic we’ve seen lots of green shoots and positive shifts towards creating better work environments. Spurred on by changing work patterns, the ‘great resignation’ movement and now figuring out how to work in a hybrid world. Organisations are waking up to the need to really listen to their employees and create a true people-first culture — and news flash, it’s more than just an annual employee engagement survey.
We’re really proud that this year Magnetic have won Gold in the Telegraph’s Workplace of the Year Awards which recognises happy, productive employees. Delighted to be recognised for prioritising our people, and our culture that we believe is what sets us apart as an organisation, here’s 4 things that we’ve learnt:
Care about people as individuals. Celebrate your differences. People are what makes your business special. To be a people-first culture you need to care about your employees as individuals: know what makes them tick, what makes them unique, why they choose to spend a big part of their day with you as a business and why you trust them to be your shop window and to represent you externally.
At Magnetic we come from all different backgrounds. Each one of us brings something special and we have created an environment that celebrates this and empowers people to bring their best self to work. And that starts with your people strategy: every single person who works in our business is valued in exactly the same way, and this is critical to the success of the business.
Take time and invest in communicating well. How well and how often you communicate with employees has a massive impact on how engaged people are. Here’s a few simple rules we stand by:
- When you communicate, do it with purpose
- Give people what they need, when they need it
- Think about why you are communicating and the purpose of the message
- Keep your ears to the ground and understand how people are feeling
- Think about how people are feeling and set the tone of your message accordingly — it’s all part of the employee experience journey
- Don’t hide from difficult conversations, be visible, approachable and honest about where things stand
- It’s fine for things to change and evolve — constantly review what’s working, what’s needed and change things up
- Your comms strategy, approach, messaging and channels need to be people-first.
Have a strong employee value proposition. Businesses are still in fluxx — figuring out priorities and how they work in a post covid world. What’s clear is that employees are keeping a close eye on this and figuring out what’s in it for them. The great resignation movement accelerated the chat about meaningful, long-term change to workplace culture. While this is still hot news, it may not be set to last. That said, businesses still need to figure out what their employee value proposition is — and it needs to be strong.
For Magnetic it accelerated the cementing of policies and approaches that were discrete before. We’re being clear on our employee value proposition. And it’s constantly evolving. Choice, empowerment and excellent communication is how we create an environment for our people to thrive. We’re on a mission to embed these three things into everything we do, fostering a happy, healthy team, where everyone realises their full potential and supports career growth.
Consider the employee experience. It’s no longer about employee engagement and those horrible annual surveys, this has been replaced by the concept of the employee experience. Focussing on how your people interact and experience various HR touchpoints and everyday working practices you immediately find the friction points. By finding these friction points, you can instantly improve the employee experience, thus increasing engagement and putting employees first.
We’ve worked together to consider the employee experience and develop an environment, and employee value proposition that nurtures and inspires our brilliant team. Here’s a snippet of what this means:
- Making an all company bank holiday an annual tradition
- Allowing individuals to repurpose bank holiday days in line with their religious beliefs
- Expanding our compassionate leave to include days off for miscarriage (this applies to all genders) and menopause
- Creating an environment where output is valued over hours, for better engagement and work-life balance
- Making sure no one is sidelined because of where they work, or overlooked for promotion
- Reviewing our onboarding experience to make sure every single employee starts right and the employee experience is smooth.
Interested in joining a business that has a strong people-first culture? We’re hiring in London and Manchester, check out the roles on our people page.
Kaitlyn Dalterio is Head of People Experience at Magnetic. We help some of the world’s best known companies design better futures. If you’re interested in joining us, get in touch: kaitlyn.dalterio@wearemagnetic.com.
